


Matt Knew Getting A Livejournal Was A Bad Idea

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: sexy_right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:06:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy lifts a brow.  "You're not the only one who can run a simple hack, Farrell.  And by the way, 'slacker_hacker'?  Lame name, dude."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matt Knew Getting A Livejournal Was A Bad Idea

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt, "someone finds Matt's diary", for the community sexy_right on LJ and their LFoDH 5th Anniversary Fest
> 
> * * *

"So," Lucy says. "You've got the hots for my dad."

Matt's fingers still on the keyboard. 

It's not like he didn't suspect this day was coming. Lucy's sharp, after all, and not much gets by here. And she's been over a lot. And he may have been spending just a little too much time staring at John lately, especially since John started the home exercises that the physiotherapist recommended, doing reps in the living room with the arm weights that leave him all hot and sweaty and—

Aaaand okay, he probably should have responded to Lucy at least ten seconds ago. 

He can recover. He swings around in his chair, meeting Lucy's raised brow with an incredulous stare. "What?" he says. "No!"

"Right," Lucy drawls out, shoving off from the doorjamb to flop onto his bed and curl her legs under her. "So it wasn't you who wrote ' _I hear him tossing and turning at night and wish I had the balls to go in there and tell him how I feel'_? That wasn't you, Farrell?"

Matt's gone through countless episodes where his blood sugar bottoms out and he's pretty sure he's going to faint, but this is the first time he can remember actually _feeling_ the blood drain from his face. "Wh…what?" he manages to splutter. "What? You... how? What?"

Lucy rolls her eyes. "Smooth."

Matt shakes his head, which does nothing except make him feel light-headed on top of completely and utterly confused. "That… that's from my journal. My private journal. My online private journal. That's... that's set to private!"

"Right," Lucy agrees without a trace of guilt.

"But—"

"Okay," Lucy says, "remember last weekend when you asked me to come over and sit here being bored while you killed dinosaurs on your Xbox—"

"Okay," Matt interrupts, "I don't remember saying anything about bored, and technically they're not dinosaurs, they're genetically engineered cyborg—"

"--and _I_ said that I had a really important poli-sci test to study for?" Lucy lifts a brow. "You're not the only one who can run a simple hack, Farrell. And by the way, 'slacker_hacker'? Lame name, dude."

Matt closes his eyes. The only reason he'd started the damn blog in the first place was because the shrink said it would be a good place to sort out his thoughts after the whole Almost Getting Shot To Death By Thomas Gabriel And Then Killing His Henchman thing. And then… okay… he started sorting out other thoughts as well. Thoughts about how John has mostly started calling him "Matt" instead of 'kid' all the time, and what that could possibly _mean_. Thoughts about how much the leg exercises he has to do suck giant monkey balls, and how John always gets down on the floor with him to help. Thoughts on how he figured that John's hands would be rough and calloused, but they're actually soft and gentle when he puts them on his shin, manipulates the muscle, guides him through the routine that makes him cringe and close his eyes. Thoughts on the way John talks to himself when he forgets that Matt is around, and how the very fact that he forgets that Matt is around makes Matt feel like this is _home_ , and that he _belongs_ here, and how he wants to be so much more to John than just a houseguest but he doesn't know how.

When he opens his eyes – in the fervent hope that maybe he fell asleep at the computer again and this is all just a very bad dream – he finds Lucy staring at him in amusement.

"Okay," he says, "I'm not even going to start on how what you did is a gross betrayal of my privacy—"

"Yeah, that's probably smart, considering you're on the FBI's black hat list for betrayal of privacy on a _massive scale_ and all."

"—and as for what you read on my _private journal_ ," Matt soldiers on – choosing to ignore her complete misread of the series of events that landed him on the damn black hat list, because that can of worms can wait for another day – "I can totally explain."

Lucy snorts. "Big strong cop, life and death situation, you and your inexplicable comic book superhero fetish. You're practically a walking cliché, Farrell. I know _why_. I just want to know what you're going to do about it."

"Do?" Matt repeats. "Do? You mean besides bang my head against the wall? Luce, I don't know if you've noticed, but your dad is like the straightest straight that's ever straighted. He's like… ruler straight. Like if you look up straight in the dictionary—"

"You don't know my dad as well as you think," Lucy says quietly.

Matt's in the midst of a good flail, but something about the sound of her voice makes him look up quickly, eyes wide. "What?"

Lucy flips her long hair behind her back and shrugs. "Look, I'm not saying I _know_ anything. I'm just saying… I see the way he looks at you, too, you know. He doesn't exactly look at you like you're just a roommate, okay?" 

Matt shakes his head. She's wrong. She has to be wrong. Because there's no way. Just because… okay, so yes, sometimes he does look up from his cereal in the morning to see John watching him over the rim of his cup of coffee, and maybe sometimes John's hands seem to linger too long on his leg when they're running through the exercises. And John does have this thing where he touches him like practically every single time he passes by. But all of that's just… well… it's circumstantial at best. 

He blinks. "No way."

"God, men are dumb," Lucy sighs. "Okay, since you clearly aren't about to pull your head out of your ass anytime soon, I'm going to tell you what to do."

"I—" 

"What you are going to do, Farrell," Lucy continues, "is be blunt with him. Tell him how you feel."

"Hah. Funny. You get that whole deadpan thing from your old man. That's… awesome."

"Do you want to get laid sometime this century or not?"

"What I want is _not_ to be having a conversation about…" he steals a quick look to the open door before lowering his voice, "about having _sex_ with John McClane with his goddamn _daughter_! You know what, Lucy? Let's just say the whole blog was a joke, okay? It was a… a… a role playing experiment! Yeah, go with that. Just pretend you never saw it."

There's actually about four seconds where he thinks she might fold.

"Like I said," Lucy says, "I don't know anything for sure. This might be my dad's first time hooking up with a dude, or he may spend every Saturday night in leather bars wearing ass-less chaps—"

Matt drops his head to the desk. "Oh my god, please stop talking."

"The point is, my dad doesn't get subtle, Farrell. You just have to tell him how you feel."

"What are you two talking about?"

"Ohhhh. Hey, dad," Lucy says. "We were just—"

"Wheaties!" Matt says quickly. He lifts his head so fast he thinks he might get whiplash, manages a wan smile. "Yeah. Lately, you… you've been buying a lot of Wheaties, and… um, I don't… really like them? And Lucy thought I should just tell you, but I didn't want to… you know… make you feel bad. For spending your money on Wheaties. When I don't really like them."

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Lucy roll her eyes. He only hopes she's picking up the mental _shut the fuck up and go with me on this_ messages he's sending her. If not, he's doomed.

"Huh," John says. "Wheaties."

"Yup. Yeah," Matt agrees. "So maybe you could… not buy Wheaties?"

"I could do that," John says. He turns to go, stops to lean against the door. "I just thought maybe you were talking about that diary thing you've got on your computer."

Okay. He's doomed anyway.

"Whoa," Lucy says brightly, "is that the time? Gee, gotta run."

Matt's pretty sure Lucy says good-bye, and John probably says good-bye back, and Lucy might even stand on her toes to kiss John on the cheek. He's not sure of anything, though, because he's too busy looking for a giant black hole to climb into. For the second time that night, he feels all the blood drain from his face and pool somewhere in his gut. And this time, his lips actually feel numb. 

"Um…" he says feebly when he realizes that Lucy has long fled and it's just John, still hovering hesitantly in the doorway. "What?"

"Diary," John says. "You had it on your thingmabob there the other night when I came in."

Matt swallows dryly. "And you read it?"

John has the good grace to look chagrined. "Couple of lines, before I realized what it was. I've been trying to figure out how to talk to you about it."

"Oh?" Matt says. "Oh. No, you don’t have to… I mean, it's just a stupid blog, you know me, anything that comes into my head just spills out, _bluhhh_ all over the place, it's like verbal diarrhea except in this case it's not, you know, verbal. 'Cause of the whole thing of how it's a blog and not me… talking." 

"Matt—"

"But it's fine, John. Like I get that you might be freaked out, I do, and I _totally_ get that you might want to punch me in the face—" 

"Jeeeezus, I'm not gonna punch you in the face."

"—but I swear it's not like I'm going to try to _seduce_ you or anything—"

"That's too bad," John murmurs.

"—because I totally get that you're…" Matt blinks. "What?"

John shrugs. "Been a long time since there was a good old fashioned seduction in my life."

"I'm sorry. _What_?"

John takes a little half-shuffling step into the room, his head down, and for the first time since he came into the space Matt really looks at him. And comes to the startling realization that John McClane is looking decidedly un-John-McClane-like. This John McClane looks… nervous.

John clears his throat. "What I'm tryin' to say here—"

"Yeah?"

And when John lifts his face, meets his eyes with that laser-sharp gaze, Matt feels his stomach do a strange flip-flopping lurch that he'd previously thought was reserved for 12 year old girls swooning over Justin Timberlake.

"I like you too, Matt."

Yeah, there's that lurch again. And the dry mouth. And the heart beating way too fast thing. "Wh—"

"If you say 'what' one more fucking time I may rethink punching you in the face."

"Hah." Matt grins. Can't stop grinning. "Okay. So then maybe I'll just say… I like you too."

"Okay," John says softly. "Good."

Matt makes a mental note to take Lucy out to lunch, his treat. And then John is up close in his space, and he doesn't think about Lucy again for a good long time.


End file.
